He grew up in Belfast, after his father, a minister, took up a post at Malone Presbyterian Church, and was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. After leaving school he worked for the Northern Bank, taking evening classes at the Government School of Art, and joined the Belfast Art Society. He married Edith Mary Mageean in 1890, and the couple moved to London, where Wilson studied at the Sphinx Studio. They had a son, Jimmy, in 1900, and a daughter, Peggy, in 1908, but Edith became an acute alcoholic and died in 1910 or 1911. Wilson married again soon after.